It's easy to install a new hard drive in your desktop computer, but laptops can be a whole other ball of wax, because the drive is usually wedged deep into the notebook's innards and it takes a lot more elbow grease to swap out. MacBook owner Dwight Silverman took the plunge when he filled up his drive and doubled his available gigabytage. This process varies from notebook to notebook, so if you've successfully installed a bigger hard drive in your laptop, tell us how it went in the comments.

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As anyone trying to download or upgrade the latest version of Ubuntu likely found, the servers at Ubuntu can get pretty overwhelmed, especially on new release days. The (unofficial) Ubuntu Blog points out a list of mirror sites you can use to speed up your software updates and avoid strained servers. Look through the "Mirror-Mirrors" list for a location near you, copy the "http://" or "ftp://" line, and then head to your system's sources list, found in /etc/apt/sources.list. Make a backup copy, and then replace all instances of http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu with your mirror server line, and you should notice faster response times when updating or downloading new packages.

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Want to ensure your system presents a secure front to the Internet, but don't want to keep an app updater program like File Hippo running? Software security company F-Secure offers a free online tool that checks your browser and the majority of Windows' web-related services and programs, with no software download required. The tool only works with Internet Explorer, and (obviously) can't upgrade your apps over its connection, but does point you to the web sites where you can grab your upgrades. Best of all, there's no sign-up or registration required, and a few minutes can keep you one step ahead of the next zero-day vulnerability.

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Windows only: Install and remove programs, update all your applications at once and build your own Linux-style repository for Windows with AppUpdater, an unassuming but powerful free program for Windows. Similar to the Apt or Yum applications in Linux, AppUpdater saves you browsing time and guess work while installing from a big list of programs, including a number of Lifehacker favorites—but you can roll your own repository of programs as well. But Appupdater is more than just a low-tech installer—its real power lies in two simple commands.

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Dang, Gmail really is stepping it up these days. First IMAP support, and now a new version's rolling out which includes message pre-fetching for speedier performance, a new contacts manager, and more keyboard shortcuts. The Official Gmail Blog writes:

Even on a fast Internet connection, it can take a second to request and render a new web page, and when you read a lot of mail, these seconds can accumulate to hours waiting for email to load. We've spent a lot of time profiling all parts of the application, shaving milliseconds off wherever we can.

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Mac OS X Leopard only: If you tried installing our favourite password manager for Mac, KeePassX, on Leopard, you already know it doesn't work. (When you launch it, it crashes, without ever opening.) Apparently someone who knows more about KeePassX than we do figured out it's a problem with the Qt development package installed with it. Here's how to get KeePassX working on Leopard.

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Those of us who ran out to buy the newest version of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard this weekend had a choice: piggyback the upgrade on top of your current installation of Tiger and keep all your data and applications, or wipe the hard drive and start sparkly clean and fresh (but without any apps or data). As a Windows user, I tend towards a clean install, but Mac commentator John Gruber says:

Arguments that there is something mysteriously dangerous or deficient about the default upgrade procedure—and that you should do a clean install instead, followed by tedious hours manually migrating software and data and preferences from your old installation—are voodoo.

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Macworld says there are a few things you can do to clean up and prepare your Mac before you take the leap to OS X 10.5 Leopard. Install the latest versions of your current applications (many are rolling out Leopard updates), clean up your hard drive, uninstall unneeded software, run the Apple hardware test and repair your hard drive using Disk Utility. The list of file and folder deletion candidates is especially impressive. First there are the usual culprits like Documents and Applications, but to dig deeper and rid yourself of cruft, look in:

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The next version of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard will be released in 10 days for $158 ($249 for a family pack o' licenses). You already know what's coming in Leopard: Time Machine backup, iChat improvements, a shiny (but not all that useful) Desktop and Dock, the final release of Boot Camp, and a much-improved, iTunes-like Finder. But what's the feature that will get you to fork over your hard-earned cash?

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